This is originally a quote from this infamous classic book (which I am ashamed I haven’t got my hands on yet). I chopped it into some phrases and lines to make it look like poetry. It is a technique (I forgot the name, unfortunately) I learned from an online poetry course which is about the use of a quote / paragraph from a book and breaking it down into lines to transform it into a poem.

And the baby of my darling Lonna named FLYLēF just turned 2! To celebrate, an amazing group of bloggers and I have planned posts for you to enjoy, all centered around the theme…

FRIENDSHIP

Please make sure to visit them, and perhaps make a new friend along the way.

FRIENDSHIP

I am delighted when I learned the theme of Lonna’s anniversary blog tour is about friendship. Why? Because I value friendships a lot.

In as much as I want to think, I am not so good in making friends, but I am good in maintaining them. I have kept some friends from my elementary, high school and college days. I can also say I am still friends with my co-workers from my two previous jobs. And I intend to keep them.

I know there is strength in living alone. In doing things on your own, but I find it comforting to have souls to share, experience and learn with.

My upcoming book, Between My Bleeding Lines, is a product of friendship. If not for the great writers here whom I become friends with, I would never be the writer that I am today. I would never be able to be brave and be courageous and write my own book. Got to give some shout out for them:

Between My Bleeding Lines and this blog exists because of them my faraway best friends. That I think is enough proof of how valuable friendships are for me.

TESTIMONIAL

And of course, Lonna is part of the WordPress community who showered me with love and fueled me to write and write some more.

I remember seeing her blog for the first time and falling in love with her graphics and her book reviews. She writes so well that she can make you run to a bookstore and go check out a book. She balances the good and the not so good part of the book in between beautifully crafted yet truthful lines.

But aside from that, I adore her bubbly personality and kind heart. ❤ She never fails to make me smile and warm my heart. Cheers, darling, for more years! ❤

Lonna Yen the creative mind behind FLYLēF (pronounced like flyleaf) who enjoys reading late into the night to satisfy her insatiable addiction to mostly young adult and adult novels: romance (contemporary and historical), fantasy, and paranormal (especially vampires). She believes in the magic of spellbinding words coming together to build breathtaking worlds in our minds’ eyes. Happiness is just a book away, find it at FLYLēF.

What is it about: Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness.

There’s only one problem: she’s not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel’s convinced she’s found her solution: a teen boy with the username FrozenRobot (aka Roman) who’s haunted by a family tragedy is looking for a partner.

Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other’s broken lives. But as their suicide pact becomes more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting to die or trying to convince Roman to live so they can discover the potential of their energy together. Except that Roman may not be so easy to convince.

What I Love: I love the characters because the writer was able to make them both relatable. You feel them, their pain, their hopelessness and even as they fall in love.

The struggles of the two main characters are revealed in a heart tugging way.

This book will make you smile, it will make you laugh, and it will make you feel for more sensitive for teenagers who may be depressed.

What I Don’t Love Much: Nothing.

Wise Words:

“Depression is like a heaviness that you can’t ever escape.”“Sometimes I wonder if gravity is the problem. It keeps us all grounded, gives us this false sense of stability when really we’re all just bodies in motion. Gravity keeps us from floating up into space, it keeps us from involuntarily crashing into one another. It saves the human race from being a big hot mess.”“Maybe that’s what love really boils down to-having someone who cares enough to pay attention so that you’re encouraged to travel and transfer, to make your potential energy spark into kinetic energy. Maybe all anyone ever needs is for someone to notice them, to observe them.”

What I Love: Madame Agatha Christie is one beautifully twisted writer. You can never ever know who kills who. She is the best example why I love mystery and crimes. The tension, the suspense, the revelation! Geez!!

What I Don’t Love Much: Nothing!

Wise Words: “…what people do see at a moment of intense excitement and nervous strain. What they do see and, even more interesting, what they don’t see.”“…if you have pain, you know how to enjoy the exquisite pleasure of the times when pain stops.”“One is alone when the last one who remembers is gone.”

What is it about: The Silence Between Moonbeams is about life — not always romantic, and not always easy, but often beautiful.

Everything is a product of the universe, the one thing about life we all share. It binds us together not only on a cellular level, but it’s also quintessential to the human condition. Thoughts, feelings, triumphs, love, loss, and much more are covered throughout these pages.

Discover what it feels like to live.

What I Love:Raw. Honest. Brutal. Beautiful.

This poetry book shows how darkness can create something so beautiful. This is a living proof that writing can heal, and it can make one feel alive again.

Prepare for goosebumps, prepare for heartbreaking lines, prepare to be struck straight from the heart under the silence between moonbeams.

“Reality depends on perspective, on what is paid attention to.”

What is it about: Joe O’Brien is a forty-four-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts. A devoted husband, proud father of four children in their twenties, and respected officer, Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking, uncharacteristic temper outbursts, and strange, involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to the stress of his job, but as these symptoms worsen, he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his family’s lives forever: Huntington’s Disease.

Huntington’s is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. Each of Joe’s four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their father’s disease, and a simple blood test can reveal their genetic fate. While watching her potential future in her father’s escalating symptoms, twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. Does she want to know? What if she’s gene positive? Can she live with the constant anxiety of not knowing?

As Joe’s symptoms worsen and he’s eventually stripped of his badge and more, Joe struggles to maintain hope and a sense of purpose, while Katie and her siblings must find the courage to either live a life “at risk” or learn their fate.

What I Love: How the story unfolds.

The explanatory prelude.

The suspense.

The rawness of the characters and their individuality.

The lovely picture of a family battling a hard disease with strength, love and hope.

What I Don’t Love Much: None. 4 stars rating is because I love Lisa Genova’s Love Anthony and Still Alice more. 🙂

Wise Words: “Once you can imagine these things, you can’t unimagine them.”“Every breath is a risk. Love is why we breathe.” –Katie

“Shoot for the moon, even if you fail, you’ll land among the stars.”

What is it about: Holly couldn’t live without her husband Gerry, until the day she had to. They were the kind of young couple who could finish each other’s sentences. When Gerry succumbs to a terminal illness and dies, 30-year-old Holly is set adrift, unable to pick up the pieces. But with the help of a series of letters her husband left her before he died and a little nudging from an eccentric assortment of family and friends, she learns to laugh, overcome her fears, and discover a world she never knew existed.

The kind of enchanting novel with cross-generational appeal that comes along once in a great while, PS, I Love You is a captivating love letter to the world!

What I Love: If you are looking for one easy read, this is the book for you.

It deals with one hard life evet but it still managed to be entertaining. The hopeful end completes the easy read aura.

What I Don’t Love Much: The main character. Her being confused is a bit annoying sometimes.

Wise Words: “Memories were fine, but you couldn’t touch them, smell them or hold them.”

“Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.”

What is it about: To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough…not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

What I Love: With a unique theme, a unique storyteller, a unique set-up, this is indeed an epic read.